Not all CL recipes seem Light to me

[illinoismom]

Okay, most recipes in my CL Mag look great and have great ingredients, but butter? cream? cheese? I am trying to loose weight and eat better - these seem to defeat my efforts! suggestions? Anyone care to help me revamp my perceptions? http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/confused.gif

[sneezles]

Eating right and deprivation are not the same thing! Moderation and portion control are the keys to a healthy "diet".

[Jewel]

I used to feel the same way until I really sat and thought about it...I am looking at making a lifestyle change here. This isn't a 'diet' that I'll be on for a few months then go back to 'regular food'. If I do that, then I'll just put the weight back on! You can't stay away from butter, cream cheese and heavy cream forever and be truly happy in cooking OR in eating. The key is learning how to use these ingredients to enhance food's flavor as opposed to smothering it. Tell me to stay away from a particular food for the rest of my life and you can bet I'll be craving it for days until I finally cave in and binge. But, if you teach me ways that I can eat that food and still remain healthy and lose weight, then I'll be able to stay within my perimeters and still enjoy eating! Eating without guilt is a new concept for me, and I'm trying to enjoy every minute of it! That splash of heavy cream used in the Chicken Fricasse with Orzo absolutely makes that dish. A year ago I would have felt guilty even buying that heavy cream, let alone using it! But now? I'm thrilled that I can use just a touch to make that Heavenly sauce and not feel guilty... http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/wink.gif

[laden]

I have been thinking the same thing. It seems like CL recipes are becoming more and more like regular recipes. And every year they seem to become less and less light.

I also subscribe to Weight Watchers Magazine (their recipes seem very light in comparison to CL).

All that to say this...I have been a WW Lifetime member for years and manage to maintain my weight by using CL recipes almost exclusively. I think the CL recipes just taste better, although I can usually have a larger portion of the WW recipes.

[makedah]

I had pork phobia for a while, then I decided that once in a great while was not going to kill me, or even make me gain weight. And I realized that didn't get fat by eating hamhocks with my beans or by putting margarine on my toast. I got fat from gorging on high-calorie (and often low-nutrition) food all the time and not exercising. I personally don't see the point of completely outlawing certain ingredients (butter, cheese, bacon, nuts) as long as your overall eating is healthful and light. As others have said, I'm trying to eat this way (11 months and counting) for the rest of my life: I can't afford to feel like I'm being deprived.

This may have been discussed elsewhere, but in a stack of old Martha Stewart magazines that I found, there was a "day by day" WW magazine FULL of CL recipes. Does WW run CL recipes often?

[This message has been edited by makedah (edited 04-14-2001).]

[Vanessa]

The other day I was watching an interview with Julia Child as you know she likes butter in recipes. They asked her if she had changed to a healthier recipes and she said you can enhance dishes by the use of butter cream etc. You cannot omit all fat from dishes because you will be having to compromise in taste. She says you can adjust amounts and find a happy medium plus eat smaller portions.
Cooking Light I think has this same idea. They want us to enjoy good food but in a "lighter" way. Eating Well had the same idea cutting back on fat but keeping up flavor. Yrs ago people used to omit pork etc from diets but nowdays pork is leaner and like Julia Child says its moderation that makes a difference. When reading C LIght, Health magazine, Prevention etc it seems they are all moving toward the trend of letting us enjoy food a bit more with new flavors and adjusting new cuisines (Latin, Greek etc) but making them lighter.
Its funny when I cook from C LIght people don't believe its :light". I always show them the recipe and they are pleasantly surprised! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[AD]

I hate the taste of many types of fats too. I like butter, nuts, and peanut butter but that's about it.

A person needs some fat in their diet to survive. I believe it's 10-15 grams per day. You need fat to absorb certain vitamins and to stay alive.

[SusieO]

Originally posted by makedah:
This may have been discussed elsewhere, but in a stack of old Martha Stewart magazines that I found, there was a "day by day" WW magazine FULL of CL recipes. Does WW run CL recipes often?


I've also noticed that WW cookbooks contain CL recipes. I think they share a publisher.

I like to go through my CL magazines and figure the WW points for each recipe. Sometimes I have to think twice about trying a recipe because the points seem too high for one dish, or more than I want to "spend" at one meal. And I often lighten CL recipes by omitting oil, or using fat-free instead of low-fat dairy products. (Don't worry, I get plenty of fat from other sources -- like chocolate!) http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[Lynn B]

I personally LOVELOVELOVE CL's philosophy and the vast variety of wonderful food that I can (and WANT to!) live with, day after day, year after year. I think their recipes are NOT too light, NOT too "heavy"... JUUUUUST RIGHT!!!

Signed,
Goldilocks http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif (aka Lynn!)

[karole]

i just gotta say i love cooking light--i cook cl exclusively & am now working on throwing out all that old stuff. what more could you need? every month new recipes to try. makes ya dizzy tho--any way does me .& all those back issues.

[luv2cook]

i wish I could learn moderation!

[Ohioan]

I'm going to have to be a dissenting voice here, but if you want to throw things at me, try to pick soft ones or things I can resell at a profit. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/wink.gif

I hate fatty and creamy foods. I gag on butter, cream, cream cheese, sour cream, cream sauce, cream of X soup, mayo, etc. (Put a drop of butter on my tongue, and I'll give you back my whole stomach. Ditto for the rest of the previous list, except you get only half of my stomach.) I like what's called "healthy" food, and I get CL mostly because I know I'll find more recipes for good food in it than I can find in other magazines where the food is full of butter, cream, cream cheese, etc. To me, all that butter, cream, etc., isn't "regular" food; it's yecchy food. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/tongue.gif

See? I wish I could claim my "healthy" eating patterns as a virtue, but it's simply a matter of taste. So I, too, am starting to think CL is starting to put too much butter, cream, cream cheese, etc., into everything -- regardless of whether the stuff is reduced-fat, low-fat, or no-fat. The point isn't the calories or fat grams; it's the taste. I don't want my food to taste as though it's fatty!

Okay, now throw things. But remember: soft things or resaleable items only, please.

Fractiously,
Phoebe

[misstapioca]

I cook exclusively CL recipes all the time. I always use the current issue for that month to cook with as well. I am doing wieght watchers too and i calculate the points for each recipe. i have learned alot from this mag. I never really controlled my portion sizes and how to eat in moderation till now. i feel i am in the process of changing my bad eating habits for good. I am hooked on CL mag and hooked on this BB and hooked on healthy eating!

[JulieM]

I have to agree with illinoismom and laden. In fact I wrote to Cooking Light concerning this issue last month. In the March issue CL had an article from them talking about how they've changed the format to include more butter, cream cheese, etc. But as I said to them in my letter, I can pick up tons of recipe books and magazines that use these incredients to make tasty recipes. What I always loved about CL was that it contained some of the best and latest health and fitness information you could find, and the recipes taught me how to make good food while using healthier ingredients. I now have to skip or modify many of the recipes because I don't want to consume the saturated fat, even if it is low-fat. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/frown.gif On the plus side, I love it that they have put more emphasis on soy and vegetarian meals. I'm not a vegetarian but I like to include these meals in our diet.

[donleyk]

What I like about Cooking Light is it is one of the few magazines that list the nutritional info. With this I can choose if I want to try a recipe, or just cut back on the amount of fat. IMO this hardly affects the taste.

My DH and I started out (dieting) basically with a meat (chicken or fish) and a steamed veggie for dinner. (Taking care with the other 2 meals) We lost weight and we are both committed now to exercise. It has become easier, then, to cook using CL recipes and eating in moderation.

It is certainly a life style thing.

[makedah]

I just went through the last stack of Martha Stewart magazines I got from someone's curb, and there were 2 more issues of CL there from 1996. I can definitely see that recipes then were lighter. Most of them had 18 to 20 percent of their cals from fat and there were FAR fewer desserts than there are now. And oh yes, NOTHING was fried.

I didn't find this food appetizing. There wasn't a single recipe in either of these issues that I wanted to try. In the other two 1996 issues I have, there may be one or two that I want to try. I don't THINK it directly relates to the fat issue (I wasn't counting out recipes because they didn't have oil, of course), but perhaps.

My guess? In general definition of "healthy living" has changed a lot over the years: I think more people are interested in exercising harder/more often today than when CL first started, and they are less interested in consuming very limited calories and fat. CL might be be trying to keep up with that. (Note: contemporary issues seem to have far more fitness information in them, as well.) Or, CL might be trying to sell to a wider audience by appealing to people who only want to lighten up their usual fare every once in a while. I HAVE noticed that the magazines now are bigger and have more advertising.

I don't know the reasons for the change, I just know I prefer the food/information in the contemporary issues. But then again when I count cals, I shoot for 1800 and get 25 percent of my cals from fat (15 from protein, 60 from carbs). That might give me more fat grams to play with than other people have or want. However, I can see how others would feel the magazine was moving in a direction they didn't want to go in.

Illinoismon, you may want to buy some of the annual issues from years past, or see if your local library has annuals or back issues (mine does).

[This message has been edited by makedah (edited 04-16-2001).]

[greysangel]

I personally love the magazine. Don't get me wrong, there are recipes that are definitely high point and ones that I save for the weekend where high points are an option.

I have been on Weight Watchers since September and have lost 75 pounds. I would have been bored to tears with diet mentality by now if it wasn't for 1)cooking light and their fabulous recipes and 2)the philosophy that WW has taken up which is "have anything you want but be accountable and have portion control".

Mocha Fudge Pie anyone? (6pts per serving and worth every single one!)

JeAnne

[JJeannette]

Like many of you when I first looked at CL I felt the recipes weren't really very light(light, to me, meant low-fat and low-calorie). When doing WW I wanted everything to be low points! As I tried to expand my food choices, tho, I kept going back to CL for new ideas, cooking methods, and ingredients. If I still feel something is not as light as I'd like, I play with the basic recipe----sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't---but I'm sure eating things I wouldn't have touched 2 years ago! Now--anyone have any good recipes for couscous? http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[Leanne]

Taste & ingredients aside, looking at the nutrition at the end of a recipe - many recipes have 10 or more grams of fat per serving & alot of recipes have over 30% of the calories come from fat. I thought the 30% mark is what is recommended for a normal individual, not one trying to lose weight. I also thought that if you're trying to control you fat intake, it should be b/w 30-60 grams a day - 30 for losing weight & 60 for a regular individual. (I know these things vary from person to person depending on height, etc.) Does anyone know if I'm right on these stats? If so - then CL recipes aren't that light alot of the time.

[Grace]

Fat grams have little to do with losing weight. It's calories that count. To your body, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. To lose weight, you must eat fewer calories than you expend.

That being said, the 30% "mark" is recommended for good HEALTH in general, in the sense that high fat diets can cause heart disease, hardening of the arteries, strokes, and obesity since 1 gram of fat has more calories in it than 1 gram of carbs or 1 gram of protein, thus making it easier to eat more calories (which are ultimately what make you fat, not the fat itself!) Whew. Now THAT was a run-on sentence! Anyhow, your total "percentage of calories from fat" really ought to be calculated in terms of an entire meal, or even an entire day, thus, making the individual recipe numbers kind of moot. For example, if I eat a main dish where 40% of my calories come from fat, but put a soup, salad and dessert with it where the calories from fat are say, 10%, then overall, I'd be well within the 30% guideline. I think that's why CL includes an occasional "higher fat" item. It is more than likely still a LOT lower in fat than the original (i.e, if you got the same dish in a restaurant), but now it's something that can fit into a HEALTHY, on-going lifestyle.

Someone gave me a subscription to Fine Cooking. While the pictures are beautiful, and the recipes look delicious, EVERYTHING has like 25 or 30 grams of fat per serving. There's no way I could fit recipes like that into "everyday" living. I have to reserve these sorts of things for special occasions, and even then, I can almost always find a CL "substitute" for the same dish, that will be equally as yummy and lower in fat and calories.

I would agree, however, that CL has changed its "philosophy" over the years, in that it did indeed used to be much stricter about its fat and calorie contents. But I also believe that over the past 10 years, health and nutrition information has changed based on so much new research. They have found that being so restrictive in one's diet can be counterproductive, and fats like Omega-3's are actually super healthy and beneficial (remember when avocados were a BIG no-no?!!) Now we know better, and I think CL has done a great job of keeping up with the new information and adjusting their recipes and philosophies accordingly.

Oh, and eating healthy and eating to lose weight really are two different things. One wouldn't want to be in a perpetual state of losing weight for an entire lifetime, so there comes a point where weight loss is no longer your goal, and maintenance and being/staying healthy become the new goals. I don't think CL purports itself to be a "weight loss" magazine per se - I think we all have a perception that anything "light" must mean it's sole purpose is for weight loss. I like to look at it as a general purpose way of eating. If I want real weight loss, then maybe I have to cut back more and excercise more, but if I just want a general eating plan that won't make me FAT and ILL, and has lots of variety (key to good health AND happiness!), then CL is it!!! (And if I want to GAIN weight or spend a lot of time at the hospital when I get older, well, there is a plethora of books and magazines with recipes for that!!! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

Just my .04 cents!!!

P.S. - Greysangel, I TOO want to CONGRATULATE you on your tremendous success!!! Now that's something to be proud of!


[This message has been edited by Grace (edited 04-16-2001).]

[makedah]

Greysangel: 75 lbs since September. WOW! Congratulations.

Grace: Ditto! Very well said.

[kentgirl]

Well said Grace!

I watch my calories and my fat gram percentages over the total day - not per recipe. And I'm losing weight every week, right on goal.

[jd]

Grace - excellent points! I have just hit maintenance on WW and now find that I can eat any CL recipe and be comfortable with the points. When I was losing weight, a lot of CL recipes were too many points to be comfortable with. I hadn't realized the difference. Thanks for a lightbulb moment!

Congratulations, greysangel!

[ebobbitt]

Makedah, you asked if WW runs CL recipes often. For a short period ot time WW Magazine (just the mag and not the other entities) was owned by the same company CL is owned by. It was during that time the CL recipes started to appear in the WW publication. Southern Living, Cooking Light and Weight Watchers were all housed on the same grounds in Birmingham. WW Magazine was later sold back to where ever it came from. I have the scoop on this because a friend of mine is a copy editor for Southern Living and one weekend when I was visiting her we went to a party hosted by someone on the WW Magazine staff. Weird huh?
Elizabeth

[Lynn B]

Grace,
Bravo! That was an awesome post! Really! I am seriously applauding over here! Thank you!

Maelynn, if you are here - I definately think that is "quote-in-the-magazine" worthy!!!! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

Lynn

[emilycat]

Grace,

I agree with everything you wrote, and just wanted to applaud you for being so concise and well-written. (If I had the motivation right now, I'd insert a Mamasue-style hand-clapping graphic http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif )

Emily

[GayeC]

I think Grace's comment that eating healthy and eating to lose weight are not the same thing is very important. A person who only needs to maintain her current weight, and who is exercising regularly, can eat quite a few more calories than someone who is trying to lose weight. Both ways of eating can be healthy, but they are quite different. Recipes that you might not use while trying to lose weight may be perfectly acceptable once you have reached your goal weight.

[Joyce]

Although I don't think anyone can answer as well as Grace, I just want to add that neither my DH or I are looking to lose weight, however neither do we want to gain. We enjoy trying new and different meals. C/L offers this to us (many on a gourmet level, in my opinion)in a healthier form than going to restaurants all the time. I am a firm believer that a little of everything in moderation keeps one fairly healthy, and food fairly exciting. If I want to diet, I will pick and choose the recipes within C/L by calorie count, or adjust my portions to a smaller amount than given. In this way, everyone can enjoy the magazine.

[Grace]

Well, thanks, you guys. I'm blushing now. Can you all tell I'm a salesperson?! I just love CL soooo much, and I really think they've got the right idea, that's all! I'm also glad you all pretty much agree with me! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/biggrin.gif

[Beth Y]

I am a day late responding and agree with much of the posters statements(CL is adding more cream, etc.) but they still keep their nutritional info so I can choose what to cook and what not to cook. I like to know that if there is something I am craving (face it we all have cravings) be it desserts, fried chicken, coconut-milk laden thai food, french food, etc. that CL will tell me how I can indulge this craving and still watch the bottom line. This is similar to the argument that CL has too many dessert recipes. I make few desserts, but when I do make them, I like knowing that I am making them as light as possible.
Every now and again, I look at a recipe's data and say "that is not so light" but then I catch myself and consider what it would have if it wasn't a CL recipe. If it is a heavier on the fat, calories, etc recipe, I save it for a special occasion, or time when we are really wanting that dish

[JohnK]

I don't know if Maelynn read this but I work at CL and Grace nailed it and ebobbit's info regarding WW and CL is correct and reliable.

[gertdog]

I recently joined WW and am a longtime CL subscriber. One big difference I notice between the WW recipes and the CL recipes is that WW seems to rely a little more heavily on completely fat-free products. I notice recipes that call for lite bread, fat-free cheese, etc. Highly processed, super light foods don't satisfy me. When I make a WW recipe I often find myself substituting "up"... using light cheese instead of fat-free, even though it ups the points for the recipe, because I'm more satisfied with the food that way.

CL recipes tend to seem more "right" to me as is. I'm a vegetarian and so sometimes substitute for or omit meat, but otherwise I tend to love CL recipes. Having subscribed for many years, I can say that the recipes have definitely moved more toward a "moderation" approach in the past few years (e.g. a little butter on occasion won't hurt you) and I think it's an improvement, personally. I can cook just about anything in CL and be happily within my WW points range, and I'm losing weight! I feel like CL gives me tools that go a long way... not "diet" foods, but healthy foods that I can eat for the rest of my life!

My two cents of course... I know plenty of people who agree with the sentiment that CL is less "light" these days...